


one day, we'll fall

by UnusuallyNormal



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 16:07:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6121996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnusuallyNormal/pseuds/UnusuallyNormal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a chilly, autumn-turning-winter evening when Matsumae first saw Ihei.</p><p>Ihei had been alone. Sitting at one of the tables, her head was high, her eyes alert and alight with the sights around her. A first-timer, by the looks of her – and Matsumae has to admit, this scene would be a lot to take in for a first-timer – but Ihei, Ihei hadn’t looked as if it had even occurred to her to be uncomfortable.</p><p>**<br/>Wherein Matsumae doesn’t deny herself things. (It’s the <em>rule.</em>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	one day, we'll fall

**Author's Note:**

> for f/f week! the sense theme? probably smell or taste or something.

After they finish they lie together in Matsumae’s enormous four-poster, their breathing slowing down and the covers half off, exposing bare shoulders, arms, backs, letting the heat emanating from their skin dissipate into the room. Cool morning light bathes them. Not bright enough to give color to things yet – just barely gray-blue.

Matsumae breathes through her nose.

She allows herself this because she’s second handedly a Tsukiyama and the Tsukiyamas do not deny their natures. The body next to her smells rich and warm and human and the scent of it quickens Matsumae’s blood.

Ihei has her head on Matsumae’s shoulder, her knee slipped between Matsumae’s thighs, her fingers on the edge of Matsumae’s mouth. Her eyes are closed, fine light lashes resting just above her cheek. Matsumae sucks her own bottom lip contemplatively. Wanting, wanting … it’s a game, this particular wanting. Identifying it. Letting herself feel it. Deciding not to have it.

Matsumae doesn’t deny her nature, but when her nature wants two things that are impossible to have together, she picks the one she wants most. With regards to the other … the best she can do is imagine. Play the game. She exhales through her mouth, inhales through her nose. Closes her eyes. And drops her head to the curve of Ihei’s neck.

“Matsu …”

“Shh. Let’s not get up yet.”

The tip of her nose brushes the dip behind Ihei’s collarbone.  _ Ah _ . Her scent is heavy here, enveloping, human and savory covered by a thin veneer of salt-sweat. Matsumae’s thumb runs over Ihei’s shoulder, her arm pulling tight around her back.

At times like this, with Ihei’s heady scent overwhelming her inhibitions, Matsumae can’t help feeling a little as if the wiry girl in her arms is somehow  _ hers _ , as if – though she’s never needed to lay claim to a meal before – as if some sense of ghoul territorialism is manifesting here, far from hunting grounds, oriented specifically toward her pretty bedmate.

Would that be usual? It’s certainly something she’s heard of, but she’s never felt it for anyone before.

She moves in to the crook of Ihei’s neck and shoulder, and presses her lips there in a closemouthed kiss. Ihei murmurs something unintelligible but faintly amused and slides her hand up Matsumae’s side in response, letting it come to rest just under the curve of her breast, her fingers tracing, tracing. Her scent is strongest here, Matsumae thinks, inhaling deeply. Like this, she can almost relax.

But being with Ihei Hairu is laying her head in the jaws of the crocodile, and Matsumae knows it.

It makes things just a little tenser, a little sharper whenever they’re together. If Matsumae had been anyone other than Matsumae, Ihei’s secret would be safe. But Matsumae is Matsumae, and she’s done her investigating and checking and digging, and so she’s found out, found Ihei Hairu’s name and photograph and history in the CCG databases.

Matsumae is sleeping with a ghoul investigator. And a very good one, at that.

Her mouth slides up Ihei’s neck – lips pressed shut, shut tight – and Ihei huffs a small sigh. She lets her fingers play up Matsumae’s side. It’s a good feeling, Ihei’s gentle stroking, but a riling one. Matsumae arches into her hand, and Ihei laughs softly, smoothing her palm in small circles just next to Matsumae’s breast, under her arm.

She smells so good. And that amusement – that unaware amusement – compounds the stirring feeling. Here, right here in her arms, Matsumae holds the best and brightest of the dove academy, oblivious and willing, and she can do whatever she wants with her.

Except eat her.

Matsumae slides her hand into Ihei’s hair and tips her head. Tips her chin up, over, tilts her head away, exposing the clean, smooth lines of her neck. She looks for a minute, letting her breath ghost over her skin.

Then she dips her mouth down, fits it into the place just under her jaw, and she lets her lips part.

Ihei lets out a silent breath. Matsumae feels it leave her.

She tastes so good. Matsumae drags her tongue over Ihei’s skin, licking until the salt taste is gone and it’s just Ihei, and Matsumae savors her. She tastes the warmth of her, the softness, the pull of her skin over veins and muscles and bone. Matsumae is too conscious of  _ what lies beneath _ , always. Here, the platysma, here, the mandible, here, the jugular. The language of anatomy has been clear to her ever since she was a young child, through all the bodies she has seen, once living and warm, now unwrapped and unfolded. She knows exactly what it would look like to take Ihei apart.

But she won’t.

  
  


It was a chilly, autumn-turning-winter evening when Matsumae first saw Ihei.

It was at the bar that’s technically a ghoul bar, but in practice populated about half by humans and half by ghouls, the uniting factor being  _ rich _ . Some of the humans knew who they were spending the evening with. Some did not. The ghouls who attended were of the sort too wealthy and well-fed to be a threat (and most, acquaintances of a certain Mr. MM). The humans who knew were of the sort too easily bought out to be a threat, rich and sheltered and of the opinion that ghouls were a grand adventure. The humans who didn’t … well, they had the tendency to occasionally disappear.

Ihei had been alone. Sitting at one of the tables, her head was high, her eyes alert and alight with the sights around her. A first-timer, by the looks of her – and Matsumae has to admit, this scene would be a lot to take in for a first-timer – but Ihei, Ihei hadn’t looked as if it had even occurred to her to be uncomfortable.

When their eyes met, Matsumae had had her hand up a ghoul woman’s blouse. Ihei hadn’t looked away.

Matsumae hadn’t, either.

She doesn’t deny herself things. It’s the  _ rule _ . She doesn’t deny herself food, nor what she feels about women, nor the company of women of the same persuasion. She doesn’t deny herself  _ this _ , touching skin and breath in her ear, and she doesn’t stop herself when she locks eyes with another woman across the room (very pretty and very pink-haired and very unintimidated) and can’t look away.

In that moment, in that ghoul bar and gazing at that woman, Matsumae had felt so, so, utterly herself. The rush was invigorating, vitalizing, confidence and  _ rightness _ and something else, something tantalizing and hard to pin down, something to do with the woman across the room. Matsumae bent her mouth to her partner’s neck and mouthed at it, all the while keeping her gaze trained on the girl at the table. The woman arched against her, huffing air, and Matsumae lifted her and stroked her and all in all handled her expertly, making a little show of it, a demonstration – it was that vaguer, trickier feeling of hers that made her do it, urged her to hold eye contact and make the suggestion to the woman across the room.

And Ihei? Ihei hadn’t broken eye contact until Matsumae and the woman got out of there – which, admittedly, did not take very long. As she pulled the door open, though, Ihei had, unblinking, raised two fingers to her face and made a rather obscene gesture. Then she had winked.

Matsumae couldn’t figure out how to explain to her partner-for-the-night why she was laughing.

  
  


“Ooh, that’s gonna show,” Ihei says, when Matsumae pulls away.

She doesn’t sound upset. Matsumae inspects the mark, giving it a last lick. “I think it will,” she agrees.

Ihei flicks the side of her head. “Asshole. I’ll get in trouble at work.”

“Put a band-aid on it,” Matsumae advises.

“On my  _ neck? _ ”

“A scarf won’t hide it.”

“Ugh, just put a hickey on my  _ forehead _ while you’re at it.” Ihei touches the mark with two fingertips. Then she kisses Matsumae. There’s a bit more of an edge to it than an innocent morning kiss ought to have.

Matsumae’s mouth feels … achy. Unsatisfied. She bites hungrily into Ihei’s kiss, pursuing her mouth when she tries to pull away. Ihei makes a surprised noise, but allows her lips to part for Matsumae’s tongue, and then she sighs. She’s so good. Matsumae wants to fill her mouth with her, kiss her until she surrenders, taste the tang of her blood, stroke her hair and hold her close. She wants to take her and possess her and  _ have _ her in every way she can, and all of a sudden her whole body is hot with the wanting. Ihei’s hand covers her breast and she moans and flips so that Ihei is underneath her on the bed and the sheets covering Matsumae’s back are sliding off, the silk slip and faint rustle of them feeling somehow way too illicit and tantalizing, exposing both of them to the cool empty room.

  
  


The second time they met was also the first time they  _ met _ , met completely, with a full and proper exchange of names and kisses and orgasms. It was a memorable occasion, even for someone who experiences a full and proper exchange of such things at least once a week.

Matsumae hadn’t yet picked up someone that night when Ihei entered the bar, something that in retrospect was probably by design – whether it was Ihei’s or her own was unclear. The flirtation had gone straightforwardly. Matsumae had been direct as always; Ihei had been coquettish, but in an ironic sort of way. They had both made and gotten out right on schedule.

It wasn’t that part of the evening which made it so memorable, nor was it the part afterward, the part with fewer clothes. It was the part where Ihei was in the shower and Matsumae was looking through her computer because there was something about her that made Matsumae feel the need to do that – even beyond her impressive muscularity, though that in itself was unusual to see in human women.

That was the part when Matsumae found out she’d just fucked a dove. The white coat in her closet confirmed it. Matsumae touched her fingers to her lips. She’d fucked a dove.

And – she rose, and closed out of the search, turned toward the bathroom door – she was about to do it again.

  
  


Ihei had remembered the event for an entirely different reason, that reason being simply that it was her first.

Not her “First Time” in  _ that _ sense, although certainly her first in a while, and only her second with a woman. ( _ That _ first had been a girl in the Academy, who dropped out within the next week. It was something that still stung sometimes, but in the end, it didn’t really matter.)

No, the particular first that this was was the first she meant, that she premeditated. She has loved women for a very long time; feared it for years, come to accept it only recently, and decided to act on it even more recently than that. As first times go, it … it worked out well. Matsumae had known what she was about; she had been just the right amount of gentle and just the right amount of  _ not _ , and she had known how to do some truly extraordinary things with her mouth.

The next day, back at her own home, Ihei had sat at the edge of her bed and just buzzed with it.

_ Matsumae _ . It was a fantastic name to say, too. It felt like something low, musical:  _ Maaat-su-mae _ . To say it felt like it had felt to see her for the first time, there with that woman (in public!) – so confident and uninhibited and at ease with herself, so much the antidote to the frozen-up internal squirmishness Ihei had for so long felt regarding the very same part of herself that Matsumae had so calmly put on display.

And it  _ had _ been the antidote.

_ I’d like to say that name again, _ Ihei had thought, and they had met for a second time, a short week later. And a third, and a fourth. The fourth was Ihei’s favorite – almost a date, the shared observation that both of them were  _ ripped _ prompting an invitation to work out together.

And, well, Matsumae had turned out to have access to a  _ personal gym _ . And, well, she looked good in a sports bra. And, well, exercise mats turned out to be quite convenient. And, well, there were other ways to burn calories than just using the machines.

It  _ was _ a good workout.

So, this. Ihei and Matsumae moving into the abstract terrain of  _ we’re sleeping together _ . Ihei has taken other partners in the meantime, a few times, and she knows Matsumae has, too – but, for both of them, never the same person twice. Never the same person five times in a  _ personal gym _ .

Matsumae is Ihei’s first in that respect, too.

And she’s one final first, one final first that is perhaps the cake under the cherry, the canvas on the painting, the filament in the lightbulb. She is Ihei’s first ghoul.

  
  


Matsumae handles Ihei pleasantly into the mattress, coaxing her legs apart and  _ sliiiiding _ her knee between Ihei’s thighs. Ihei rolls up her hips up against her and opens her mouth for Matsumae, a hand coming around her jaw and tipping her head up into a filthy hot kiss.

Matsumae  _ wants _ her. It’s very obvious. The knowledge is a satisfied twist to the corners of Ihei’s smile, a triumph of the very best kind, an enemy subdued and so totally in her thrall that it can’t even bring itself to eat her.

Every time that Ihei can tell Matsumae is tempted, it sends an awful sort of thrill through her. She bares her neck for Matsumae, her wrists, her whole body, and Matsumae won’t do it. Matsumae won’t do it.

(It hadn’t been a mistake she was at that particular bar that night. Ihei had known what it was.)

At first Ihei had always made sure to have her quinque close at hand. Hidden away in a bag, or in the folds of some article of clothing tossed away but  _ not _ forgotten, Ihei had tensed, ready to dive for it at the barest indication Matsumae was going to tip her hand. (She’d get there fast enough, she  _ would _ .) As time went on, though, she had become … not more careless, but – more daring.

Matsume won’t do it.

It’s not that Ihei trusts her. Definitely not that. It’s that she trusts  _ herself _ , and her read of the situation. She walks the knife’s edge, but she knows the shape of the knife. Matsumae, simply, wants her too much. She won’t do it. Ihei has made it so.

It’s an intoxicating sort of rush.

Here they are, Matsumae and Ihei, and Matsumae can’t keep her mouth off of her.  _ She wants to eat her! _ So badly. Matsumae’s hands press against Ihei’s skin, firm, yielding. There’s no way not to be afraid, just a little bit. Everything is open-mouthed kisses, the barest touches of teeth, caressing hands poised to grab but  _ just _ holding back. That’s it. Right here, right here, balancing, balancing. Anything could tip it.

It’s the most incredible thing that Ihei has ever felt.

 

And after, Matsumae closes her eyes again, and Ihei lets her fine dark hair slip between her fingers. Fascinating, how nice it is to touch.


End file.
